Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers Al­liance (RFA) Davi­ca Thomas is call­ing on the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to re­open nom­i­na­tions so their can­di­dates can file be­fore the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

“This Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (Elec­tions) will not take place with­out our can­di­dates whose rights have been in­fringed. Our can­di­dates were de­nied their con­sti­tu­tion­al right as a cit­i­zen of T&T to con­test a na­tion­al elec­tion be­cause of the in­com­pe­tence of the EBC no, no, no,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Thomas, some of their can­di­dates were told to ei­ther file nom­i­na­tion as an in­de­pen­dent or were turned away by Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers on June 26, even though the par­ty’s sym­bol was gazetted in No­vem­ber 2022.

She said on­ly 11 of their can­di­dates were suc­cess­ful.

“We are not go­ing to ac­cept this, this is un­ac­cept­able, and I’m ask­ing a ques­tion. Was this a de­lib­er­ate act, was it?” Thomas ques­tioned.

Thomas al­so called for an in­de­pen­dent body to in­ves­ti­gate the EBC as they on­ly re­ceived cor­re­spon­dence about their sym­bol the night be­fore nom­i­na­tion day.

Last week Fri­day, the RFA sent a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to the EBC cit­ing mis­man­age­ment of its can­di­dates on Nom­i­na­tion Day.

The EBC con­firmed re­ceipt of a cor­re­spon­dence and said the com­mis­sion would re­spond ac­cord­ing­ly.

The RFA has formed an al­liance with the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP).

Thomas spoke dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the PEP can­di­dates at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya on Wednes­day evening.

In a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, the EBC said it was not legal­ly pos­si­ble for nom­i­na­tions to be re­opened in the way the RFA re­quest­ed.

Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope said, “The RFA is a po­lit­i­cal par­ty tak­ing part in this elec­tion and their par­tic­i­pa­tion as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty is a stake­hold­er de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, and we val­ue our re­la­tion­ships with each and every stake­hold­er.”

Nar­cis-Scope said the EBC will re­spond to the cor­re­spon­dence sent by the RFA in due course.